T&T took a ma­jor step to­ward its dig­i­tal fu­ture this week as three na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions—the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC), the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPIC-TT), and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT)—signed a land­mark agree­ment to in­tro­duce a na­tion­al elec­tron­ic Know Your Cus­tomer (eKYC) plat­form.

The sign­ing, held at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port-of -Spain, was wit­nessed by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh. Al­so in at­ten­dance were UTC CEO Nigel Ed­wards, TSTT’s act­ing CEO Keino Cox, Na­tion­al Pay­ment Com­pa­ny CEO John Out­ridge and Dawn Nel­son, gen­er­al man­ag­er of the In­no­v­a­tive Cen­tre—the tech­nol­o­gy arm of NPIC-TT.

The eKYC plat­form was de­vel­oped lo­cal­ly by the In­no­v­a­tive Cen­tre and brand­ed NO­BIS. It will al­low cit­i­zens to ver­i­fy their iden­ti­ty and open ac­counts en­tire­ly on­line, NPIC-TT said in a news re­lease. The sys­tem re­places the tra­di­tion­al in-per­son process with a faster, more se­cure, and pa­per­less dig­i­tal ver­i­fi­ca­tion method. The eKYC plat­form is part of Gov­ern­ment’s wider plan to mod­ernise na­tion­al pay­ment sys­tems and pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery.

“Our cus­tomers want con­ve­nience with­out sac­ri­fic­ing trust,” said Ed­wards af­ter the sign­ing. “Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, UTC can now on­board in­vestors com­plete­ly on­line, while main­tain­ing the same lev­el of com­pli­ance and se­cu­ri­ty our in­sti­tu­tion is known for.”

Un­der the agree­ment, TSTT will pro­vide the se­cure telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and cloud in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port the plat­form’s na­tion­al roll­out. Act­ing CEO Keino Cox de­scribed the project as proof that lo­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion can dri­ve mean­ing­ful in­no­va­tion.

Dawn Nel­son, who heads the In­no­v­a­tive Cen­tre, said the project show­cas­es T&T’s own en­gi­neer­ing tal­ent.

“NO­BIS was de­signed and built right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Nel­son not­ed. “It’s scal­able, se­cure, and meets in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards—a strong state­ment of what our lo­cal teams can ac­com­plish.”

Be­cause the In­no­v­a­tive Cen­tre de­vel­oped the sys­tem on be­half of the Na­tion­al Pay­ment Com­pa­ny, the same eKYC tech­nol­o­gy will be ex­tend­ed free of charge to all min­istries and state agen­cies. The move is ex­pect­ed to make it pos­si­ble for cit­i­zens to ap­ply for pass­ports, re­new dri­ver’s li­cences, pay gov­ern­ment fees and ac­cess oth­er pub­lic ser­vices on­line—all us­ing one ver­i­fied dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty.

Swarats­ingh praised the ini­tia­tive as a tan­gi­ble step in the coun­try’s on­go­ing dig­i­tal evo­lu­tion.

“This agree­ment rep­re­sents re­al progress. It demon­strates how the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors can work to­geth­er to mod­ernise ser­vice de­liv­ery, strength­en trans­paren­cy, and make life eas­i­er for cit­i­zens,” he said.

The NO­BIS roll­out will be­gin with UTC’s dig­i­tal on­board­ing lat­er this year be­fore ex­pand­ing across gov­ern­ment min­istries and state agen­cies. Of­fi­cials say it will form the foun­da­tion for a uni­fied na­tion­al dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty stan­dard —po­si­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a leader in se­cure and in­clu­sive dig­i­tal ser­vices across the re­gion.